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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

Play Catch the Cat Burglar

How silently can you creep? Go head to head against the guard in this stealthy game.
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Chairs
  • Tables
  • Blindfolds
  • Newspaper
  • Oranges, satsumas or easy-peel citrus fruit

Before you begin

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning this activity 

  • Scrunch up plenty of newspaper and scatter it all over the floor.
  • Put chairs and tables on the floor to act as obstacles.
  • Get enough oranges, satsumas or easy-peel citrus fruits for one each.

Playing the game

  1. Everyone should gather at one end of the meeting place.
  2. Choose one person to be the guide.
  3. The guide should stand at the other end of the meeting place. They should be blindfolded.
  4. Everyone else is a potential cat burglar. Cat burglars try to get in and out of buildings as silently as possible, so no one knows they’ve been there until much later.
  5. An adult volunteer should silently choose one person to be the cat burglar, such as by pointing at them.
  6. The chosen cat burglar should slowly and carefully make their way to the other end of the meeting place, where the guard is, and take the orange, satsuma or easy-peel citrus fruit that has been placed somewhere in the room. They’ll have to avoid the obstacles, and creep through the noisy newspaper.
  7. Meanwhile, the guard should listen carefully and try to catch the cat burglar in the act. If they think they hear the cat burglar, they should clap their hands. The cat burglar should freeze, and the guard should point to where they think the sound came from.
  8. If the guard points at the cat burglar, they’ve been caught! They should sit down where they are, so they’re another obstacle for the next cat burglar. An adult volunteer should tell the guard that they caught someone, then choose another person to have a go as the cat burglar.
  9. If the guard points at an empty space, the adult volunteer should tell them they didn’t catch the cat burglar. The cat burglar should keep going.
  10. If they cat burglar makes it to the end without being caught, they become the guard.

Reflection

This game needed everybody to be active in a very specific way – they needed to mimic the stealth of cat burglars. How did people move differently to make sure they were quiet? People could take it in turns to share their ideas. Are there any other sports and games where people have to move their body in different ways? People might think about gymnasts, who are flexible and agile to jump and flip, or they might think about swimmers, whose bodies are horizontal rather than vertical.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games

The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.

Food

Remember to check for allergies, eating problems, fasting or dietary requirements and adjust the recipe as needed. Make sure you’ve suitable areas for storing and preparing food and avoid cross contamination of different foods. Take a look at our guidance on food safety and hygiene.

You could take obstacles away from the course or add more. It’s OK to change the difficulty during the game too, if people are finding it too easy or too hard. To make it trickier, ask the cat burglars to steal a fruit from under a chair the guard is sitting on and take it back to the start.

Change the obstacles and the route to suit people’s needs, for example, if they use a mobility aid.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Beavers Health and Fitness Activity Badge
Cubs Our Skills Challenge Award

Young people could help design the space with the obstacles and the paper.